Data Collection

The Olinger Group determines and uses the necessary and appropriate data collection method(s) for each project from the full array of industry standard methodologies. we recognize that nearly every research project poses its own unique data collection requirements.

The Olinger Group has invested in technologies, personnel, and partners that enable us to identify and provide the right data collection for every project. This means we use uni-modal data collection for conventional projects with basic population, and offer multi-method data collection when required by the complexity of the design or difficulty in reaching a target population of interest. The sophistication of research design being implemented, or the scope of business decisions at stake, dictate the definition of project universe, the enumeration of population and the methods used to obtain an effective sample. We specially design each method with our client to achieve the best approach for the project.

Online Surveys Online Surveys
Our customized online surveys are created with Sawtooth Software, an industry-leading online survey software. Our surveys are deployed through our own web portals. The Olinger Group delivers invitations to participant respondents using a wide variety of methods to maximize population coverage and response rate. We can create branded surveys and implement video, images, and other multi-media effects within the online survey instruments. Furthermore, we utilize many state of the art survey methodologies and advanced analytics, such as choice experiments and HB estimations. Our surveys are secure, efficient, provide live results, and feed directly into data analysis.

Online Panel Online Panel
The Olinger Group manages its own online panels for industry-specific target samples. We use top-of-the-line email delivery software to ensure secure delivery and higher response rates. We can access or develop vertical industry panels to meet specific project requirements.

Paid-for-use panel vendors allow access to potential survey participants online, including river sampling and social media.

Mail Surveys Mail Surveys
The Olinger Group’s mail processing facility allows for in-house survey template designing, printing, processing, and mailing. Surveys are returned using pre-paid business reply. Returned surveys are processed through state-of-the-art scanning and verification technology using trusted industry software, ABBYY. The Olinger Group can produce high-volume survey distribution and process millions of paper surveys per year. Specialized machinery also allows for a closed-loop process, which ensures complete privacy.

Telephone Surveys Telephone Surveys
CATI technologies standardize the telephone interview process and reduce potential error and bias when surveying known phone numbers or populations that are best reached at work or in households with “landline” telephones. We work with a few specific and trusted CATI telephone interview companies to obtain higher-standards of data quality. Trained and monitored interviewers conduct the telephone interviews with respondents, and data collection is reviewed and monitored to ensure quality.

Focus Groups Focus Groups
Still an important tool in the research arsenal, this qualitative technique is necessary when clients know little about their market, research addresses completely new or changing products, or the language necessary to communicate with a target population is not already well defined or understood. We have two certified focus group moderators on staff, as well as relationships with many focus group services for hosting the groups all over the country. Conveniently, our certified moderators on staff allow us to move to different locations to perform Focus Groups.

In-depth, one-on-one interviews In-depth, one-on-one interviews
Sometimes there are only a few members of the target population or a few individuals are so very important that their perceptions and opinions matter far more than all the others. This situation requires special handling and privileged data collection. All of our executives have terminal research degrees or years of executive experience and are available for peer-to-peer interviews. Their years of research experience guarantee that interviewing is both directed and spontaneously responsive, in order to obtain maximum information from each of the limited number of potential sources. More of a scripted conversation, the interviews can divulge complex, peculiar, or particular aspects, or diverge into relevant but unforeseen insights of a market research problem.

Mystery shopping Mystery shopping
Mystery shopping provides snapshots in time and space that can provide insight about the minutiae of experience and interactions between your organization, its employees, and your customers. We have trained mystery shoppers on staff, and by contracting we are able to infiltrate numerous end user settings. We match staff to each project and train specifically for the individual client’s needs. The fully customizable experience is in-depth and follows consistent objective protocol to better evaluate results.

Intercept Surveys Intercept Surveys
These in-situ face-to-face interviews are utilized to sample transient populations in large areas and with large groups of people to ascertain answers regarding a distinct subject. Short assisted interviews are conducted in retail areas such as a store or mall, in public space like airports or public transportation, after an event or performance, on the street or other public venues. It is a way to gain an immediate response about an experience. Interviewers not only complete short interviews, but can also unobtrusively record behaviors, facial expressions, body language, etc. of the target segment. Furthermore, these interviews are once again fully customizable to the client.

Ethnographies Ethnographies
The extensive use of Ethnography is relatively new in market research. In the guise of embedded or participant observation it has been a standard research tool of functionalists, especially in anthropology for many years. When appropriate, ethnography offers unprecedented, though mediated, qualitative detail and context that maximizes on internal validity, especially for highly specialized homogeneous populations. The Olinger Group knows when and where ethnography can be used to the maximum benefit to business clients and offers this methodology only if appropriate.